It is desirable for convenience and for rapid and effective sterilization procedures within a dental office to have a hand-held aspirator piece for ejection, siphoning and aspiration connected to a high-flow or low-flow air vacuum system, which also accommodates a valve at or near the hand-held portion of the aspirator tip so that the dentist need not unduly readjust his hand or body position in order to apply and stop the suction. This need for close juxtaposition of the valve and the hand-held portion of the aspirator tip creates a problem in that the hand-held piece which comes in contact with the patient's mouth needs to be removable to be sterilized. Heretofore the solution to this problem has led to the development of detachable aspirators which attempt to solve the problem in one of two ways. One apparent approach is to design a sterilizable aspirator tip which is removable from the rest of the aspirator and valve assembly. This, however, means that either the valve must be located distant from the aspirator tip, so that in most instances the operator must readjust his hand and body position while working to reach the valve or, alternatively, if the valve is located near the sterilized aspirator tip, the operator must touch the nonsterilized portion while he or she is working on the patient's mouth, in order to turn the vacuum system on and off, thus leading to nonsterile techniques. Another way of approaching this problem has been to design an aspirator tip integrated with the valve assembly and vacuum hose. This means that there must be another method of turning off the aspirator system distant from the removable valve and that the vacuum tubing must be sterilized along with the aspirator and valve, thus leading to an unwieldy device which must be carried to and from the sterilizer between uses on different patients.
To solve the above problems in an advantageous and improved way, according to the present invention there is provided a dental aspirator valve and valve sheath assembly comprising two components which allows for manipulation of the valve without direct contact of nonsterile areas. The invention further provides a system whereby a vacuum system may be maintained, i.e., whereby the valve remains attached to the vacuum hose, while the sterilizable portions of the aspirator can be removed for sterilization without breaking the vacuum. This eliminates the need for a second valve to close and maintain the vacuum system.
Furthermore, due to advantageous design of a sheath according to the present invention, the operator's hand is restricted to the sheath and kept from sliding to and contacting the nonsterile valve and hose. Furthermore, because a valve according to the present invention remains attached to the vacuum system and vacuum hose and is not removed to be sterilized, the valve itself requires less maintenance and will be less of a hazard to personnel involved during sterilization. Further advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments of the invention and from the appended drawings.